Sun, Oct 07, 2001 page3

• US support for Taiwan firm despite demands from China

  NO CONCESSIONS US officials say they will not change their position on Taiwan, even if China comes looking for favors in exchange for supporting anti-terrorism measures

  • By Charles Snyder / STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
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  The US will not abandon or bend its firm support for Taiwan despite China's participation in the international coalition against terrorism, US officials and analysts say.

  The role China will play in the fight to root out and destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network will not be crucial enough to convince the Bush administration to make any major concessions, the analysts say. And Chinese domestic political considerations will limit the role it can play, they add.

  Comments by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao (朱邦造) on Sept. 18, a week after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon, raised a hornet's nest in Washington as well as in Taipei. However, Beijing appears to have been forced to back-pedal on those remarks in the weeks since, at least in public.

  At a news briefing, Zhu sought to link China's willingness to cooperate with the US to Washington's "support and understanding" in what he called Beijing's fight against "terrorists and separatism," including Taiwan. Zhu said that the US and China had "common interests" in combating Taiwan independence activities. "We should stem the development of Taiwan independence forces," he told reporters.

  No bargains

  While Zhu seemed later to try to ameliorate his comments, saying "we are not making bargains here," he also said that "we should not have a double standard" between America's fight against the terrorists and Beijing's demands on Taiwan.

  Zhu's remarks came just two days before Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan (唐家璇) was due in Washington for talks with US Secretary of State Colin Powell and other officials on a joint effort against terrorism. But Tang apparently never raised the issue of linking support during the meetings.

  Observers feel that Tang was told either directly or through the Chinese embassy in Washington not to bother trying to make the link.

  "I see the Chinese Foreign Ministry as being hardline on the Taiwan issues," said John Tkacik, a Chinese specialist at the conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation. "I think what you saw was the Foreign Ministry taking a hard line but recognizing there wasn't going to be any room for negotiation, and then dropping back," he said.

  Cooperative officials

  While Tang brought up Taiwan in his meeting with Powell, "they always bring up the Taiwan issue," said Robert Sutter, a China specialist at Georgetown University. "But I don't see a linkage between the two at this point, and my contacts with Chinese officials suggest that they want to be cooperative."

  When asked about Taiwan during a joint press conference after his meeting with Tang, Powell said in no uncertain terms that there would be "no quid pro quo" on the issue. Powell reiterated that stance this week in a meeting with reporters in which he said that "there are some things that are immutable" in US foreign policy. "I think that those nations that depend on us somewhat for their sense of security should have no fear that somehow their sense of security has been weakened or will be weakened -- like Taiwan," he said.

  A key to Beijing's power to get any concessions from Washington over Taiwan is the importance of the role it will play in the anti-terrorism fight. There, its power will be decidedly limited, observers feel.

  "The real question is: what is it that China would do that would lead us to take that kind of a step? In the current situation, there is little China can really do beyond diplomatic and political support, some limited form of intelligence sharing, and maybe other things," said Bates Gill, the director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.

  David Lampton, the director of China studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and at the Nixon Center, agrees. "The United States will get cooperation from China that's important, but not of transcendental importance," he said, noting that "probably 10 or more countries are more important than China," including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. He also said that 19 NATO nations have signed an agreement that "an attack on one is an attack against all, and China is not going to say that."

  China also will be constrained by other considerations, Lampton feels. Domestic politics will put a cap on how much China will help Washington. "No one wants to look like the lap dog of Washington," he said. In addition, China would not be happy seeing any US occupation of Afghanistan at a time when it sees the US trying to encircle it in the Western Pacific.

  What Beijing will get out of its anti-terrorist cooperation is a reduction in the chronic anti-China feeling in Washington, and may get the Bush administration to ease or eliminate some sanctions imposed in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, some observers believe.

  "China will see the diminution in the near term of the China-threat issue," Gill said. "From their point of view, these developments are good because they will cast them, they hope, in a more favorable light," he said.

  "China wants good relations with the United States," Lampton said. "So they will try to cooperate in ways that are meaningful to the United States to buy them some relief from US human rights and trade criticism."

  In addition, he said, "The United States might be more mindful of what China thinks in a number of ways, but I don't think we're going to fundamentally reverse our position on Taiwan.

  "If China's price [for cooperation] were to be slashing weapons sales to Taiwan, I doubt Americans would do that ... in fact I'm reasonably certain we won't," Lampton said.

  Nevertheless, the war on terrorism could have some subtle impacts in the near future on the way Washington expresses its commitment to Taiwan and the attention Washington devotes to the country, even though the basic commitment will remain unchanged.

  "China does have an important role to play in the counter-terrorism effort, a role that Taiwan cannot play. So China's stock has risen in some ways, in ways that Taiwan's cannot," Gill said. "The growing sense of a strong commitment which we saw over the spring and summer to Taiwan, that's going to be deflected probably for a little while. But I don't see it disappearing, not in this administration," he said.

  "So I think there may be some sort of near-term diversion of American attention in a way that puts the Taiwan security issue down the priority list for a time," Gill said. "But I don't see there being any deals cut over Taipei's head," he added.

  Calling in favors

  That does not mean that China won't come back later and seek some sort of compensation for its assistance in the effort to topple bin Laden's international terror network. Beijing may look for favors later, said Georgetown's Sutter.

  "They don't want to be seen as making deals [now]. It might come later, but it's not a good time to do that, I would think, not right now," he said. "I think they understand that."
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